At a field day the producers who stop to listen, and then stay on to ask questions, are usually the ones already thinking seriously about the emissions and sustainability, and Henty draws plenty of them. Ruminati co-founder Bobby Miller was back at the Henty Machinery Field Days for a second year, presenting from the Rabobank truck on Monday and Tuesday on why emissions tracking is worth a producer’s time and attention, and the sessions drew a good crowd despite significant heat.
The conversations after the sessions were where most of the value was. Farmers wanted to get into the specifics of how emissions intensity is calculated and what drives it up or down in different systems, along with what modelling reductions looks like in practice. These are not abstract questions for producers who are already managing their inputs closely and want to see how that work shows up in the figures. A producer who has changed a stocking rate or a fertiliser rate wants to know whether it moved the figure, and the answer depends on what is driving intensity in their particular system.
Emissions intensity, which is kilograms of CO₂ equivalent per kilogram of product, is increasingly the measure that supply chains and financial institutions are paying attention to. Producers running efficient, well-managed systems often have better figures than they expect, and knowing where they stand is the first step towards being able to communicate it, which matters more as buyers begin asking questions about emissions.
Megan Galloway and the Rabobank team hosted the two days, and it made for good company. Conversations like the ones at the truck are a reminder that a great deal of thoughtful, practical work is happening at farm level, and that is easy to lose sight of when the broader industry conversation feels noisy.
